


we're going in circles, dizzy's all it makes us

by ryanreynolds



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gilbert has it bad, Pre-Slash, Sickfic, anne is in denial but its ok bc she figures it all out, poor Anne, she gets a fever but gilbert makes it all alright, shout out to the word engagement for being so iconic to shirbert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-23 18:59:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16624610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryanreynolds/pseuds/ryanreynolds
Summary: Anne Shirley-Cuthbert is one bright girl, but also very stubborn, so while her intellect knows near to no boundaries: going to school while sporting a fever probably wasn't the grandest of ideas she'd had.Fortunately, Gilbert is always by her side to help and to bring her home when her fever gets worse. Unfortunately snow prevents them from getting further than Gilbert's house.Of course, this brings more trouble and misunderstandings than it is worth.





	1. we can make it through this

**Author's Note:**

> for the sake of the plot, please pretend that Gilbert's house is closer to the school than Green Gables bc lord knows that i did not fact check that before writing:-))

It starts as a small cough, but it’s winter, so no one thinks anything of it. Most of the children is down with a cold in bouts throughout the winter. Anne herself has been sick for a few days the past two winters she’s stayed and lived at Green Gables.

No one thinks anything of it because out in the country, out in Avonlea, no one can stay entirely warm through the winter. To not get a little sick is something reserved for the richest in the town. Though even Diana has been a little sick a week back, and Anne suspects that’s where she’s gotten her illness from.

But a cold is just a cold, it isn’t the first cold Anne has ever had, it won’t be the last, and she has worked and taken care of children while suffering from much worse ailments. There simply is no excuse why she shouldn’t go to school.

She doesn’t want to fall behind, if Gilbert is to win the top spot, he’ll have to do it fair and square. She won’t let a little sneeze here and there take her out of the competition.

“Goodness, child,” Marilla sighs as she always does whenever Anne does something that isn’t as Marilla’s used to. “How I wish you would just stay home for a couple of days. You’re far ahead of the other children.”

Anne stares gobsmacked at her caretaker (her mother, is what she secretly calls her even though she knows it’s not quite true, but it feels like it), “I am not, Marilla. You would want me to lose to Gilbert because of this? There is no way you could make me stay at home. This is about more than just grades, it’s about honor.”

Marilla doesn’t answer, and when Anne looks to Matthew for support, he averts his gaze to his porridge as he always does whenever he doesn’t want to get caught in the crossfire of a discussion between her and Marilla.

“If you say so, Anne.”

“Whatever do you mean?”, demands Anne outraged, and a little desperately, “I can’t just not come to school for a couple of days. Gilbert would get too far ahead, now that miss Stacy has agreed to give him extra lessons. And I would have you know that I would not be able to live just a day without seeing my dearest friend, Diana. Oh, my heart aches at the very thought!”

The only answer she got is a sigh from Marilla, and when she looks to Matthew once more, he is very concentrated by whatever happened outside the living room window. The deafening silence, one that hasn’t been there for a long time, is something she took as a victory, however it makes her back cripple.

It isn’t because she enjoys contradicting Marilla, but she really will be fine the few hours school lasts. Never has sickness kept her from performing her duties, and now that she’s in a place she belongs she isn’t going to slack off. It isn’t because she thought they’ll actually throw her out, Matthew and Marilla, just because she was sick.

But really, she’ll rather not risk the chance of finding out. Better that they see her as invincible, useful, that not even sickness keeps her from being the most perfect daughter they can think of.

She quickly finishes up her breakfast, the silence, though sign of her victory, too hard for her to endure for long. Besides, she can feel a cough fit on its way, and she’ll rather be upstairs in her room so she can hide the sounds in her pillow. If they hear how wet her coughs sounds, they’ll never let her go. In all the homes she’s been in where the children were able to go school, if they sounded like she does now, they were asked to go back to bed and stay there – Anne would bring them some warm milk any second now, wouldn’t she, darling?

A shiver goes through her whole body, and she quickly shakes it off. Now is not the time to get lost in a past long over. She is home here at Green Gables, she is here to stay, she is loved and cared for. She has no other children to care for, no duties other than the occasional cleaning, and all she has to do is go to school. So that’s what she’s gonna do.

She’s gonna go to school, do her duty to show her thanks for everything Marilla and Matthew has given her. They’ve given her a whole new life, they’ve lit a candle in the darkness and let it burn until it became the sun, and she hasn’t lived in darkness for so long now. Nothing is going to let her jeopardize it.

Especially not anything as silly as a cold.

 

“Goodbye Marilla, goodbye Matthew,” she calls before putting on her coat and hat, “I can’t wait to come back.”

She doesn’t hear whatever reply they give her, so soon is she out of the door. 

The air is freezing cold, and the wind makes her shiver even through the thick winter coat Marilla has given her. But if she can just ignore the cold for a bit, the world is as beautiful as the first day in spring.

Avonlea looks like a wintery kingdom, home to the most beautiful snow fairies and ice nymphs, and she can’t help but laugh and smile. She still can’t believe the ethereal beauty that Avonlea possessed is part of her home. 

“Oh, how beautiful you are, covered in the most fine and innocent snow,” she whispers, “I thank thee, spirits of the water and earth, to let me see such a sight as this. It’s absolutely breathtakingly beautiful.”

But however beautiful the world is, the cold couldn’t be ignored for long, and each breath she takes let the icecold wind enter her lungs. The cold makes her throat hurt even more than it had when she awoke this morning. The cough fit this time is so violent that she has to stop in her tracks, just to be able to gain control over her breathing once more.

“I’m just a little sick, your highness,” she whispers to the nymphs, “nothing to worry about. I do so appreciate this beauty you’ve created. It’s just the weakness of my mortal body that doesn’t.”

She resolves to as quickly as possible get to school, surely the soreness of her throat and the lightheaded feeling will pass once she’s warm once more.

The hike to the school has never felt quite as long nor this hard before. She doesn’t even know what time it is, whether she was late or early. Surely, she will be early, she had left much earlier than usual, but then again time seems to stand still here in the white winterland. Days, she feels, could have passed without her knowing.

When she finally sees the school rise up in the horizon, it’s hard to distinguish the white building from the white world around it. The only thing that makes it stand out is the ringing of bells signaling that class is going to start now.

No walk has ever seemed to take so long, which surely should have worried her. Normally, when she saw the school, the trip was almost over. Now it seems to go on for infinity.

When she turns around the corner in the field and finally is close enough to the school, close enough to touch, she can’t see anyone outside. 

Shoot, if she comes too late there’d be trouble. She doesn’t want trouble. It isn’t her fault she’s late anyway, it’s the bug spreading in her body. Her mind seems to float outside her body, and her legs seems to ache at the very thought of even moving.

But move she has to, she has to go to school. She can’t let Gilbert win. She has to talk to Diana.

She coughs until she reaches the door.

 

The warmth inside the school surrounds her, and it feels like she can finally breath properly, she almost feels like laughing, or singing, dancing. Something to signify that she feels alive again, not on the brink of death, close enough that she could feel death breathe into her neck.

“Anne?”, a questioning voice says, and she quickly opens her eyes to see all the eyes of her classmates directed at her. She looks to Diana, who looks at her with furrowed brows, to miss Stacy who she’s never seen look more concerned.

“I’m so sorry I’m late, miss,” she says, curtsies which gives her the bout of laughter she was looking for to diffuse the tension in the room. “I lost track of time.”

There is a moment of silence, as she walks through the classroom to her seat. She pointedly doesn’t look at Gilbert who is studying to become a doctor and surely will say something clever like that she is too sick to be here, and she should be heading home right this second.

Maybe he’d even suggest that he escorted her, just in case, which maybe, just maybe, won’t be so- no, it would be so terrible. Ruby would cry. It almost makes her cry, the thought. Strange.

“That’s quite alright, Anne,” miss Stacy says with a soft voice, quite unlike her, but Anne just smiles gratefully. “Your cheeks look a little red, are you quite alright?”

She nodds harshly, which makes her head throb for some reason. She quickly disguises her discomfort with a smile, a little forced maybe, but a smile nonetheless. “Of course, miss. It’s just very cold outside, is all.”

Miss Stacy nods, and that is that, she hopes. She peers over at Diana who still has that confusing furrow between her eyebrows.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Anne?”, she whispers, and Anne nods once more.

“Just fine, sweet you,” she smiles, hoping the subject will be dropped as quickly as her sickness had occurred this morning.

**//\\\**

The first part of the day goes excruciatingly slow because Gilbert is the only one who answers any questions, his streak only interrupted by Diana and Charlie a few times, which is one of the most infuriating and concerning things to happen.

Every time Gilbert sneaks a glance over at Anne, she sits silently, still as a rock statuette, with those blank eyes, white face, and red cheeks. The only sound he really hears from her is soft, wet coughs, which only makes him surer in his case. She’s sporting a cold and a fever, and if she doesn’t take it seriously, takes a day off, it might develop into pneumonia.

He answers one more question, a question he knew that Anne would’ve been able to figure out quicker than he did, and that really is what concerns him the most. That she doesn’t even seem aware of any of the questions, because she doesn’t even lift her gaze whenever Miss Stacy directs a question, however subtly, directly at her. Asks how do you spell this, looking right at Anne, but Anne doesn’t even look up, doesn’t even shake her head. Just stares at the table, until miss Stacy finally looks away to see who knows the answer. Most of the time, it’s only Gilbert – not because the others are stupid, but because miss Stacy is asking the sort of questions that Anne and Gilbert usually would fight each other intensely on.

It only makes him more and more certain that when they take a break, he has to make Anne go home. Or, glancing out of the window at the falling snow, he’s not even quite sure she would make it to Green Gables alone. Not in this weather, not with that condition. However capable she usually is at taking care of herself, illnesses renders everyone helpless.

He remembers vividly his own father’s deterioration from hardworking farmer into the miserable condition he was in, in those last few weeks where he could hardly move from the bed to the table to eat. The last few days he had even trouble with eating normally. Not that he thinks the illness, Anne has contracted, is nearly as bad but the visions, the memories of that time still haunts him and makes him want to cuddle Anne in a thousand blankets to keep her away from any evils in this world that may take her away from him as they did his father.

Not because he loves Anne, of course – but because she’s such a dear friend to him, and because she might, one day, be more. If only she’d let him care for her, if only she’d believe that it was okay not to be strong all the time, and that sometimes humans just need each other for the sake of not being alone. And that’s fine. That’s normal.

In time. In time, he’d make her see it. In the end, he thinks, he wouldn’t even care if she ends up with him (though he hopes, oh, how much he hopes). If he just succeeds in making her see that she is just as worthy of kindness and help as all those she strives to please, then he’d be happy.

The minutes until miss Stacy calls for a break goes by all too slowly, but Gilbert has always been a patient boy. 

But when she finally does say, “and then I think it’s time for your lunches, don’t you?”, and the class says ‘yes, thank you, miss’, and she dismisses them, then he flies out of his seat.

“Is she okay?”, he asks Dianne as he sinks down onto his knee by Anne’s side, very reminiscent of the day they first met when she didn’t speak to him for whatever reason and he’d resolved to call her ‘carrots’ to get her attention (and hadn’t that worked a treat for him).

Diana meets his eyes and shakes her head immediately. “She didn’t say one word to me through class. She didn’t even look at me.”

He nods gravely, turns around to go to miss Stacy, only to find she’s right behind him. He looks over at Anne once more, jaw slightly clenched.

“She has to go home, miss,” he says, leaving no room for argument because none will work. “I’ve been studying in Charlottetown with dr. Brown. I know a little of how to treat a fever. Can I lead her back to Green Gables?”

Miss Stacy smiles gently at him and nods. “Of course, Gilbert. Do help nurse our Anne back to health.”

He doesn’t really stop to examine her statement, the only thing that really filters through his brain is that miss Stacy gave him permission to help Anne home so he can help her fever break.

He smiles quickly at both Diana and miss Stacy, completely ignores the chatter in the background of both the other boys – who he knows are watching him with furrowed brows, Billy because he’s a dick who still thinks he’s better than Anne, and Charlie and Moody because they think they’ve got him all figured out – and the girls – who he doesn’t even have the energy to listen to for a long period of time on a normal day, nevertheless right now.

“Take care of her,” Diana smiles at him, before she gives Anne a kiss on the inflamed cheek and a quick hug. It makes his smile a little more soft and genuine. He’s always liked Diana, and the way she has treated Anne just makes her more dear to him.

He doesn’t quite want to think of how Anne would’ve had it if Diana hadn’t been such a sweet and kind girl who saw not an orphan, but another girl full of magic, compassion and imagination. Someone who could teach her about another side of life, than just etiquette and marrying a proper man when you grow up.

They’re good for each other, Diana and Anne. He likes to think that Anne is also good for him. She’s made him more gentle, more patient. He’s never been a cruel kid but he could get irritated. Anne’s good spirit usually diffuses the frustration in him.

“Come on, Anne,” he whispers, and puts his arm around her waist and brings one of her arms around his shoulder, gripping her hand tightly in his. 

It’s like he’s developed tunnel vision as he walks out of the class room. He doesn’t see or hear the other students after he says goodbye to miss Stacy and Diana. 

The world outside the school is just as white and cold as before, that’s not a problem – a little cold isn’t that bad when you have a fever. What worries him is the heavy snowfall. Nothing’s far away from each other in Avonlea, but there’s still quite a walk out to Green Gables, and in this snow he’s afraid of Anne’s core temperature getting too low.

It’s a fine balance, treating a fever. The patient mustn’t get too hot nor too cold. That’s why it’s the very last solution to force the patient into an icebath in order to break the fever. Lowering the core temperature so drastically can in extreme cases worsen the patient’s condition.

“Anne?”, he whispers, and she slowly lifts her head to look at him. But as he locks eyes with her, it’s easy to see how strongly the fever has her in its grips. Her eyes are blank and red rimmed, and though she looks directly at him, her gaze is faraway.

“Anne, if you can hear me,” he says lowly, as they walk in the snow, “you have a fever. I’m taking you home right now, because your fever was much too bad for you to be in school.”

There’s nothing for a little while but the near indistinguishable sound of the snow falling. If it wasn’t for Anne’s body burning like a furnace pressed against his side, it’d be almost peaceful, maybe even a little romant- no, there’s nothing romantic about Gilbert following Anne home because she was too sick to stay in school.

But another day, sometime in the future, next winter perhaps, he’ll try to coax her out on a walk in the snow. Because, though he’s used to the winters in Avonlea, today the landscape looks like it’s taken right out of one of her tales of ice queens and snow fairies.

And then there’s a little sound suddenly.

“Gilbert”, is what she says, and it sounds surprised and confused, and it makes him smile and lifts a little weight of the ball of worry that’s been settling in his chest, almost like a stone upon his lungs, preventing him from breathe properly.

“Hey Anne,” he smiles and looks down at her. She doesn’t look that much better, but at least she seems aware of who he is. “Do you remember anything?”

“We were at class, weren’t we?” and his heart clenches a little at the unsureness in her voice, and he just barely restricts himself from putting his hand on her forehead to check just how high her fever is.

He’ll use the thermometer when they got her home in bed. 

“Yeah, yeah, we were,” he says, slowly so her fever-addled brain can catch up with his words, “but you were sick, so I’m bringing you home.”

She smiles a little at that. “’s nice of you, Gil.”

He looks at her, astounded, for at moment before his smile widens. “Don’t think any of it, Anne. You can pay back by letting me win the next spelling bee.”

There’s silence for a moment, and he concentrates on getting them through the masses of snow falling around them.

“You’d win if you just added the e.” The lighthearted banter made him laugh out of pure relief that the fever hadn’t knocked her out completely.

“Never forget the e.” She smiled at that, and then silence followed once more but it didn’t feel nearly as suffocating as it had before Anne had said anything.

 

The snow around them fell quicker and quicker, and heavier and heavier. But that was just the Avonlean winter for you, that’s how it was. Whenever the snow fell, it didn’t just stop, and like all things in life, it’d get worse before it’d get better. 

That was his father’s life motto. Everything would eventually turn around, all you could do was just weather the storm until it did.

But worryingly, this storm had made Anne go completely quiet again. Not even teasing about the spelling bee and the top spot in the Prince Edward Island district got her to talk, not even to laugh with him about the possibility that Moody would get the first place.

He was positively worried about Anne’s health. And they were still nowhere near Green Gables.

“Shit,” he muttered, half-wishing that Anne would comment something about how he should watch his language. She didn’t. She just watched him.

If he hoped to ever break the fever, he had to get her inside right now. It couldn’t wait until they got to Green Gables. So instead of continuing down the road he was heading, he turned down the road leading to his own house. It was at a shorter distance, and he was quite sure that either Bash or Mary would be home to assist him in getting Anne in bed.

“If you can hear me, Anne,” he whispered against her temple, “I’m taking you home to my place. Mary and Bash will be able to help me treat you, and you’ll be right as rain again in no time. Don’t you worry.”

She doesn’t exactly answer, not that he’d expected her to, though he’d hoped, but she does lean a little closer to him. Which could either mean that she’s heard him and feels safe, or that she’s slipping into unconsciousness which would mean that he’d have to hurry to get her into the warmth of the house.

 

Maybe it was fate, maybe he’d seen them coming from a mile away, but fact was that just when Gilbert’s muscles were on the verge of giving out, Bash had come running towards them with a worried glint in his eyes.

“Who you got there, Blythe?”, he asked, though Gilbert knew that Bash could tell himself it was Anne. Nobody else in all of Avonlea, nor Charlottetown for that matter, had as beautiful, cobber hair as Anne Shirley-Cuthbert.

“Anne, Bash,” he panted, as Bash took Anne’s little body, she was too thin – always had been, into his arms. “She’s sick with fever.”

Bash looked down at her face, skin drawn and pale apart from her cheeks that were red as fire. Not to mention that even through his coat, he could feel the heat radiating off the poor girl.

“Don’t worry, Blythe,” he reassured the boy who still looked at Anne like she might be about to draw her last breath and then disappear in the wind, like snowflakes disappeared from the sun. “Mary will have your girl up and running in no time. And then you can go back to mooning over her from a far.”

Gilbert splutters indignantly at his side, but it makes that crease of worry in Gilbert’s forehead disappear for at least a few moments, so Bash counts the little friendly jab worth it.

“Shut up,” is the late retort that Gilbert gives him when he’s regained his composure and tries, and Bash knows this because he’s seen Gilbert do this so many times, to act not like a young boy, worried for his best friend and the girl he’s in love (however much he denies it), but like the doctor he wants to be, clinical and unaffected. Able to treat his patients, sow their wounds, without his hand shaking or him fainting.

Bash isn’t doubtful for even a second that Gilbert will one day achieve his dreams, professionally as well as personally. Though he hopes the boy will never lose the kindness and gentle heart.

“Mook”, Bash says, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see Gilbert glare at him before his attention is caught by Anne making a slight whimper in Bash’s arms. Her eyes are closed, though, when Bash looks down, which makes him worry once more.

The rest of the way to the house is spent in silence and their steps are hasty and long.

 

“My God, she’s burning up,” is what Mary exclaims before she makes Bash lay Anne down in the sofa.

Gilbert stands awkwardly in the doorway into the living room, watching Mary worry over Anne, demanding that Bash get this and that.

“What can I do?”, he asks, his insides trembling with the need to do _something, anything_ to help Anne, to make it all better.

“Not much, Gilbert,” Mary sighs, “she could possibly have scarlet or winter fever, but we can only pray that her fever will break sometime in the night, now that she’s lying down and letting her body rest.”

Gilbert nods, still feeling as helpless as ever. It’s just like with his father all over again. All he could do was exactly what he was told by Dr. Ward then and Mary now, which was to let the sickness run its course.

“Can I stay with her through the night?”, he asks softly, knowing it isn’t allowed, but also not wanting to leave Anne to her fever and the dreams the illness might bring forth.

He once had scarlet fever, and when he woke after three days, his dad told him that he had been mumbling all the way through about the strangest matters. For a girl with as many traumas as she, he’d never want to leave her to go through it all alone once more.

If it came to her having nightmares about past hurts, this time Gilbert’ll be there to comfort her all the way through.

Mary smiles kindly at him and nods, “of course. Bash will run to the Cuthberts when the snow eases up a little, to tell them of the situation. If you just bring your mattress in, I’ll make some space for you to lie close to the fire, yeah?”

He smiles gratefully at her, muttering a thanks as he quickly speeds to his room.

 

All throughout dinner, he’s been sneaking glances at Anne who has been sleeping since the moment they’d put her in the sofa. However, now that she’s lying down and Mary has washed her sweaty forehead with cold water, she looks far more peaceful.

When they finish up, neither Mary or Bash will hear any of his protests against that they clean up everything after dinner. Mary simply gives him a stern look to close the topic, while Bash smirks at him and nods towards Anne’s makeshift bed in the living room.

“Go to your Anne,” he says, and Gilbert completely ignores the way it makes his heart warm and flutter a little, and how much he likes the sound of that – his Anne. Ignored it completely.

He ignores it only because he actually really does want to go to Anne. Otherwise he’d take his time to set Bash, and his heart, straight on the fact that Anne and him are only friends.

The following hours are spent finishing up his homework before doing Anne’s as well. If she saw him doing it, at this late hour especially, he’s positive she might wack him with her chalkboard once more. But, looking at her flushed face, only lit up by the small candle by his side – and the fire from the fireplace, he decides that’s a risk worth running.

Finally, though, he puts out the candle, puls up her blanket so her shoulders are covered, and goes to sleep himself.

“Goodnight, Anne.“, he whispers. He gets no answer per see but in the limited light, it does look like the shadow of a smile passes over her face.

 

At first, he has no idea where he was, what time or date it is, but as soon as he gets the sleep out of his eyes and casts a look around the room, it all comes back to him.

In the sofa by his side, Anne is twisting from side to side, her brows furrowed in distress, and he quickly sits up so he’s at level with Anne. 

“No, no, no,” she whimpers, and he quickly takes her face in his hands.

“It’s just a dream, just a dream,” he whispers quietly to her, against her temple, so that her subconsciousness might hear it, despite the heat of the fever.

She opens her eyes then, but just one look, even in the limited light of the embers, makes it quite clear that she’s far, far away, out of his reach.

“You don’t understand,” she whispers, “the twins are sick, so sick. He’ll kill me.”

He shakes his head out of pure reflex, in order to not let his anger tighten his hold on her cheeks. “No, Anne, you are quite safe. The twins are healthy, just like you will be.”

She helplessly lifts her hand, reaching into the darkness of the night with no real destination. He takes it in his out of pure reflex.

“Are you sure?”, she whispers. 

He nods, smiles slightly, thinking that even though she can’t register it properly, a smile will calm her warring mind.

“Quite sure, Anne-girl,” he whispers, “you can go to sleep.”

It isn’t because he had it planned but her outburst has made it impossible for him to go back to sleep for a while, all he wants to do is be there if she wakes up again, but exhaustion is a powerful thing, and he eventually falls asleep again despite his adamant determination not to.

So when he again is jolted awake, this time by Anne ripping her hand out the grip he has on it, he wakes with a start.

“Anne?”, he asks, not quite sure whether she’s truly awake or not.

She blinks a few times in the dark, and he leans in a little closer.

“Anne, it’s me, Gilbert,” which he means as a comfort, but instead of her calming down, a shrill laughter resounds in the room.

“Don’t mock me, Gilbert is gone,” she whispers, anger lacing her voice, and he sighs once more, knowing that the fever hasn’t miraculously broken in the cover of night.

He shakes his head, “no, Anne. I was gone, but I’m back now.”

She doesn’t seem to hear him, just whispers on. Even though he tries to get her to listen to him, she continues to ignore him. As she’s speaking, it becomes more and more apparent that the timeline in her head is quite screwed up.

“No, no, Gilbert’s gone. He’s out there, experiencing the entire world, sailing the seven seas. Quite like pirates, but better because pirates pillaged and raped, and Gilbert is such a kindhearted spirit. He’d never do something as despicable as that.”

He smiles a little, turning slightly to get to the cloth in the bucket Mary has left, if Anne got too hot during the night. Like now.

“That so?”, he asks as he softly wipes her forehead and brow.

She nods weakly against the cloth. “But I was so cruel to him. He lost his father, you know. And I just wanted him to smile again, so I said that he was lucky, because he’d known love, and maybe I should’ve thought a little before speaking, because I think I messed it all up.”

He feels his breath catch in his lungs, so he has to crouch down in order for his air pipes work properly once more, which drowns out Anne’s voice for a few seconds.

“- but I stand by it. Gilbert has known so much love throughout his life, and despite him not having his dad anymore, he still has a family. The entire Avonlea adores him, loves him. He’ll never be alone, even if he lives alone.”

A soft smile curls Gilbert’s lips upwards. “Yeah, I know, Anne-girl.”

“I do hope he’ll forgive me one day,” she whispers, and then she looks straight at him, and he gives her a little smile, hoping it’ll get through to her. “Do you suppose he knows that I’ll always be there for him? He may not have his parents, but I’d know that a family doesn’t need parents.”

He wipes his cheek clean of the traitorous tear that has slipped from his eye. “He knows, he’s known since you smacked him with that chalkboard,” his voice is a little watery, but that’s okay, that’s alright. He’s never needed to keep any guards up around Anne, anyway.

“’s good,” she says, and finally her eyelids slides together, and not too long after, her breathing evens out.

“Goodnight,” he whispers once more, giving her hand a small kiss on the back of it. “Please, get better.”

 

It can be that it is because Christmas is just around the corner, and everyone knows how much Anne loves Christmas, and her body might share her excitement so that’s why it ran through the virus like it was running a mile. Whatever the reason, when the morning light shines through the small living room of the Blythe household, her fever has broken and the only symptoms of her sickness that lingers is her headache, dizziness and a little cough.

Nothing that can’t be solved by a day’s rest and buckets of tea, something that Marilla Cuthbert decides she’d get right there in Gilbert’s living room because it is still too cold and reckless to have Anne traveling in such a ghastly weather as it is outside.

“Take care of my Anne, Gilbert Blythe,” exhorts Marilla Cuthbert, face very stern, and Gilbert dares not even slouch his back in fear of her deciding against letting Anne get her sleep, here in Gilbert’s house.

“Of course, miss Cuthbert,” he nods seriously, jaw clenched, “I’d never do anything else.”

Her face softens as she nods. “That I already knew. Do have mister Lacroix if her condition worsens.”

 _God forbid_. He nods gravely. “Of course, miss Cuthbert.”

She lingers for a moment longer, then goes to hug Anne goodbye. “Get better quickly, Anne, so we can get you back to Green Gables.”

A smile forms on his face at the exchange. No, you don’t need parents to make a family, only people who loves you.

And maybe, just maybe, is he on the verge of being ready to admit to Bash, that maybe he does love Anne. Here in the quietness of his own mind, he can admit to it without hesitation or fear of not having that love requited.

One day he’ll get the courage to tell Anne too. And then, if she loves him back, he’ll shout it from the rooftops so that the whole world may know that he loves Anne Shirley-Cuthbert with all of his heart.

But that could be years from now, and today, today is all about making Anne feel better, and make her smile again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will involve scrutinization on dear Ruby's behalf, and Diana and Cole out themselves as co-captains of the ship, Shirbert.
> 
> Anne is as clueless and deep in denial as ever, and Gilbert does whatever he can to please her; so nothing's changed. Except it very much has


	2. stronger than we were before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know, when a story turns out differently than you thought, but you kinda like and dig it, but you're still not sure because, it's not what you planned?
> 
> yea, this is it, ma dudes.
> 
> enjoy i guess:')

“How was it to be healed by Gilbert Blythe?”, is the first thing Ruby asks her when she comes in school the following Monday, after spending a few days at home regaining her strength.

She pauses, looks desperately to Diana who shrugs, and, even more desperately, _does not_ look over at the table where she knows Gilbert will sit, revising and learning, as he always does. Because he has a dream, and he knows that his father had a dream for him, and he’s going to achieve them all.

She opens her mouth, closes it again, words escaping and failing her in a way they never have before. She’s always known what to say, always had words, even if they weren’t the right ones and they didn’t quite make her actual points come across. This, not knowing what to say, having not even the faintest idea of how to answer Ruby’s question, is new and scary, and nothing she ever wants to experience again.

She has to be better prepared.

Not that this will ever happen again. She will never get so sick again, during school, that she’ll allow Gilbert Blythe to walk her home. 

“I… can’t quite remember much,” she says at last, and out of the corner of her eye, she can see Josie Pye, the awful girl, raise her brow, but what’s important is Ruby in front of her with her big, innocent eyes and the way she nods, understanding and empathic.

“Oh, poor Anne,” she says, almost whimpers, and it makes Anne smile. “I couldn’t bear it if it was me who had been nursed to health by Gilbert Blythe, and not remember a thing.”

Her smile widens, and she hugs Ruby, who clings to her. 

Diana hugs her afterwards, whispering in her ear, “oh, it’s so good to have you back, my darling Anne. We missed you so terribly.” A little pause, and Anne almost releases her, before Diana, conspiratorially, whispers once more. “Some more than others.”

She _winks_ at her, when she releases her, and Anne stands, staring after as her friend goes to sit by their table. She quickly walks to join her, whispering under her breath, with furrowed brows, “whatever do you mean?”

Diana just smiles knowingly, like she has a secret figured out but she’ll never tell, a secret Anne keeps herself that she does not know.

“You are infuriating,” she whispers, opening her books, readying all her things in front of her with jerked, irritated movements.

 

Now, it wasn’t that Anne doesn’t remember anything about the that night she spent at the Blythe-Lacroix-household. Only, she can’t be sure what was real, what was a feverish dream. What she is certain was real was the changing temperature, either scolding heat or freezing cold. What she knows is real is the sense of having no idea where she was, only that was safe and cared for, and that even though the whole world seemed like a dream, everything would right itself and turn out okay in the end.

What she doesn’t know is real is the flashes of memories, the conversations held with the darkness as her companion. What she doesn’t know is real is the comforting presence by her side, the whispered comforts, the warm hand on her cheek, holding her hands still, keeping her calm like an anchor keeps a ship from drifting too far.

What she doesn’t know is real is the Gilbert Blythe she remembers from the darkness in his living room, a Gilbert that has made her heart go wild with the thought of ever being cared for so tenderly.

She knows how to care for others, to show children the kindness and love that their parents are too drunken or too angry to give them. She knows how to work with weariness down to her very bones. She knows how to live like her needs does not matter. 

She doesn’t know how it feels to have others care for her so tenderly. Marilla and Matthew love her, and Jerry might love her like a sister, like she loves him as a brother. But something about the hushed whispers, and the soft finger brushing her hand and cheek, seems like it was, _more_. Like it was something only between kindred spirits, lifemates.

It is a confusing memory, she doesn’t like it one bit, and she can’t for the life of her figure out why Gilbert would be like so towards her.

So, she deduces as she looks out the window, to the white sky, it must have been a dream. A wonderful dream. But a dream nonetheless.

She has always known that she was plain to look at, homely too. She is not beauty, but what she lacks for in appearance, she makes up for in imagination, in the worlds she creates with her words, the paintings she makes in people’s heads.

That is a wonderful gift too, and when she becomes a teacher, which she will, the children will love her for it. Marilla has said so herself, Aunt Josephine and Miss Stacy has said it too, and Anne loves them for it. She’ll never be the beauty of the town, but if the children will love her classes and look forward to school, as she does, then that will have to be enough.

But, she isn’t pretty, isn’t beautiful. In a certain light, she can consent to being a little more than just plain. But Diana, her bosom friend, is a true beauty. In any light, at any day – sunshine or rain, snow or fog – she is so beautiful and her breathtaking personality dazzle every man she meets.

Someone like her is someone that is deserving of a wonderful person such as Gilbert Blythe, and he’ll love her, and they’ll live together till the day death do them part. Gilbert gives himself fully, to his vocation, to his dream, and she knows that he’ll also give himself fully to the person who will have his heart.

She hopes that they know how lucky they’ll be.

“Anne, are you listening?”, suddenly sounds from her side, and she almost jumps into the air, quickly looking to the side.

By accident, or fate, or whatever it is, she catches Gilbert’s eyes, because of course she would, because of course he’s looking – why is he always looking, and she gulps almost unwillingly before she raises her eyes to meet Miss Stacy’s.

“No, I’m sorry, Miss Syacy,” she says in a low tone, before quickly looking to the blackboard in order to find out what’s going on.

 _Spelling bee_ is spelled in a beautiful, cursive writing across the black space because of course it is. Just the thing that was missing to make her day a complete disaster.

Usually she would’ve loved it. The spelling bee has always been one of the saving graces of going to school, especially back then when she was just Anne Shirley, was the mysterious and unwanted orphan, with only Diana as her friend.

The spelling bee when she won over Gilbert Blythe has always been a fond memory as well. Purely out of it being one of her first real victories in Avonlea, of course, one of the first moments she felt like she fit in, like no matter how vicious the other children and adults could be – she needn’t listen to them. She’d won over the precious, perfect Gilbert, and he’d taken the defeat graciously, not like victory was him owed because he was competing against an orphan.

He’d seemed happy on her behalf.

“Now, if you all would be so kind to go to and stand in front of the blackboard,” Miss Stacy smiles at them, spreading her arms, indicating to the space beside her.

With a sullen expression and a tight grip on Diana’s hand, Anne makes her way to the front of the classroom.

Without even looking, she knows that almost right beside her, Gilbert stands. His body heat radiates from him like a furnace, and the feeling resembles that of her fever just a few nights prior.

 _Anne-girl_ , Gilbert’s voice sounds in her ear, and she almost looks to the side, thinking he’s called on her. But then she remembers, Gilbert has never called her Anne-girl, and beginning at a spelling bee would be just plain weird.

She feels like she’s propelled back in time, to that couch, to those feverish dreams where Gilbert smiled softly at her, wiped the sweat from her brow, and whispered, _don’t you worry, Anne-girl, you’ll be alright_. And she doesn’t understand where those memories come from.

Gilbert is her friend, always will be, but he’ll never be more. His future wife would be absolutely wonderful, just like him, and she would make a perfect wife, cooking and cleaning and not daydreaming and wishing.

 

The spelling bee ends as it always does, with Anne and Gilbert standing side by side, not looking at each other, eyes focused on the far off distance, and minds focused entirely on winning, but Anne hasn’t felt this kind of discomfort at competing against him since that first time with Mr. Philips staring hatefully at him, Josie Pye waiting for her to slip, and Ruby almost close to tears at the thought of Anne being so close to her one true love.

So it’s no wonder, even though it hurts her pride, and maybe it breaks her heart just a little, when Miss Stacy nods at her and says, “Anne, spell engagement.”

And she says, “engagement. E-N-G-A-G-”, and she takes a deep breath, feeling her heart thunder away like the stampede of horses, and that voice, that gentle, coarse voice once more says, _deep breaths, Anne-girl_ , and the panic will not subside, and she continues with, “M-” and that’s where the bubble shatters.

“I’m sorry, that’s not correct,” and it’s all deja vu in the most terrible way, and she doesn’t even look at Gilbert, even though she knows he’s looking at her with concern, when she whispers congratulations to him.

Diana looks at her with wide eyes, arms already stretched out to draw her in for a hug when she reaches her seat.

“Are you okay?”, she whispers into Anne’s hair, and she can’t do anything but shrug.

“I have no idea.”

 

When class ends, she wants to stay around. Talk with Ruby, tell her that she can’t really remember anything of that night she spent at Gilbert’s house, that of course, Gilbert will fall in love with her. How could he not?

She wants to stay and sooth Diana’s worries because she knows that Diana remembers that _engagement_ is the only word, if any, Anne should know how to spell. It’s the word that gave her her first win, that felt like she belonged in Avonlea, if only at the top of her class, if not in any friendgroups.

Even more importantly, she wants to stay and tell Gilbert that it’s still residue effects from her fever that she didn’t add in the e. For all in the world, she wants to reassure him that it’s not feverish dreams haunting her waking moments that made her think that Gilbert had cared for her so tenderly, so intimately, that she for one second was doubtful that maybe, just maybe, Gilbert could love her like she maybe, if she allowed herself to dream and wonder and hope, could love him.

She does none of these things, even though she knows it’s best to blow out any rumours before they turn into a wildifre of gossip and run across the whole time, right to Mrs. Lynde’s doorstep.

She walks as fast as possible, though with grace, to her coat which she grabs, and then, then she bolts right out the school door, walking as fast away from the building as she possibly can, and when she’s out of sight, she starts running.

She doesn’t think of where to go, but her feet know her, and her heart always yearns after the place where her dreams came true, to the little shed in the forest.

Her sanctuary, as it had always been, was ruined, that much is true, but just being in the place gave her comfort, provided solace from her churning thoughts and confusion.

Here, it had always seemed enemies couldn’t get to her. Here, her dreams always came true, here she could let her heart yearn and dream and hope.

If there is any place on Earth where she can pretend she’s worthy of Gilbert Blythe’s love, it’d be here.

“You stupid, stupid girl, Anne,” she whispers, looking to the ground, “and that of all, why that word?” 

She takes a deep breath, before letting herself tumble to the ground, face and eyes lifted to the white sky. The snow takes the severity of the fall, and her coat keeps out the worst of the cold.

Here she feels as free as ever.

“Tomorrow, Anne,” she promises herself, “tomorrow you’ll let go of those fever dreams. Tomorrow you’ll go to Miss Stacy, spell _engagement_ correctly, and you’ll temper your heart.”

Tomorrow, she’d be sensible. But tomorrow is not today, and today she can just let herself dream.

 

The comfortable silence is destroyed by a yelling, and she almost sits up because she knows that voice, and maybe she’d already known he’d find her, but she remains in the snow, almost wishing he’d not notice.

“Anne?”, he yells out into forest, and he must’ve seen her, because suddenly the yelling stops, and the steps of footsteps becomes louder, the snow crunching beneath his boots.

The silence stretches, until he suddenly walks into her field of vision, towering above her with an amused smile on his lips.

“Anne Shirley-Cuthbert,” he says with a laugh in his voice, “whatever are you doing on the ground like this?”

For a moment, she just looks at him with a small smile before shrugging. “Thinking. Imagining. Don’t you just think this place is so wonderfully inspiring?”

He raises his eyebrows, before looking around for a moment. “I guess so, I’m afraid I don’t share your scope of imagination.”

She makes a show of rolling her eyes, desperately trying to claw her way back into their old dynamic, “that’s because you didn’t get to see it before Billy destroyed it all like the brute he is.”

And then Gilbert’s entire face shifts, and his eyes become darker than she’s ever seen before, and his jaw is set tight. His eyes once more wonder to the few remnants of Cole’s beautiful statues that are still left. “Billy did this?”

She then remembers the rumours of Gilbert hitting Billy a while back, and though she knows not to trust the rumour mill, she still does her best to divert his attention. Without thinking, which is something she really must _work_ on in the future, she stretches her hand and takes his and tugs slightly at it.

“Come down here, the sky always broadens my imagination scope,” and Gilbert’s visibly relaxes, gives her hand a little squeeze, and a smile tugs at the corner of his lips.

As he lies down beside her, that same warmth streams through her, and she closes her eyes for a moment, enjoying the quietness of the moment, and maybe a little his presence and warmth by her side.

“Say, Anne,” he starts cautiously, and Anne turns her head to have a better look at him, to find that, of course, he’s already looking at her, and his eyes are so soft that just the look of them reminds her of gentle hands wiping her tears away and soothing words exiling all her worries and fears for the night. “Are you alright? You seemed so out of it at school today.”

She looks at him for a little while, and this she knows, they can stare into each other’s eyes for what feels like an eternity and not say a word, and it not becoming uncomfortable, and that’s just the very thing that’s confusing her mind and heart, and she doesn’t know how to handle feeling so uncomfortable in her friendship with him.

She’s never thought twice about it now, and she knows it’ll confuse him even more, the way she tears her eyes away from his and sits up in the snow.

“I don’t know,” she answers, telling as much of the truth as she possibly can, “I think it’s just the fever, but everything inside me feels different, almost born anew, and I don’t know how to act in my body, it’s like it’s not even mine.”

She can’t tell him about how her very image and understanding of him has shifted, changed, but she can tell him this, and maybe he’ll understand. He’ll understand having one’s worldview shifted, it happened to him when his father died, so maybe he’ll be able to understand just a little of her confusion.

“Yeah,” he says, “yeah, I can understand that.” She can feel him sit up beside her, and then he’s moving to sit in front of her.

His eyes are earnest as they catch her gaze, “but you can always confide in me, or Diana, or Cole, if there’s ever something bothering you, you know that, right?”

She nods mutely, gratefully, and smiles weakly at him.

He nods again, “otherwise, you’re feeling good, Anne-girl?”

It feels like the whole world turns upside down in that moment, like all air and sounds are sucked out of the world, and they’re two children, or are they that anymore?, stuck in a vacuum staring at each other.

She can’t breathe.

She can’t think.

It’s like being back that first day when they meet, her scrambling to get her things, fending off the coming panic attack in order to maintain some dignity in front of who Diana called the only boy she liked in their class.

The wheels in her mind has stopped turning, and it’s like her lungs has stopped working, for all she can do for a second is look at Gilbert, shock on her face,, and a look in her eyes like this is the first time she’s ever seen him.

And then time starts again, and suddenly she’s scrambling to get away from him like she did that one day. Everything they’ve evolved into, every conversation they’ve had, every single touch, it’s like she’s standing with a blank slate, like the Gilbert she knew has died and has risen anew like a new person. A person she can’t comprehend.

“I have to go home,” she yells back at him as she runs, “Marilla, I have to go.”

 

She doesn’t go home, she wouldn’t have been able to. She has too many thoughts running through her head that she doesn’t know how to handle on her own.

So she runs to Diana, straight into her arms and explains everything like she should’ve done from the very start.

Diana runs soothing hands all over her back, as she tells the story, and she looks at her with warm, dark eyes. The more she tells, though, the more Diana smiles, which she finds disconcerting, confusing, and to be honest, she’s had quite enough of confusion today, thank you.

“And then in the woods, he said the same thing again, he said Anne-girl, Diana,” she finished her tale with a loud voice, standing up to begin pacing back and forth in the room. “And I don’t know why! He’s never called me that before, and I can’t help but think that that might mean that my feverish illusions weren’t that, but that’s absolutely ridiculous, why would he be so tender with me? In the illusions, I feel like I’m Snow White from the old fairy tales, and Gilbert my prince, but he’s not my prince, and I don’t know what to do. All my talent for words and imagining, and I am at a loss, Diana!”

When she looks over at Diana, hoping for support, an answer, her bosom friend is outright laughing now, and Anne stops offended in the middle of her steps, her arms crossed in front of her. “Why are you laughing?”

Diana shakes the laughter of her, trying, and failing, to put on a solemn expression. “Well, Anne, have you thought of the possibility of Cole being right?”

In that moment, Anne’s sure she has never regretted confiding anything in Diana more than when she told her what Cole had said that day they jumped the freight train to save Miss Stacy.

“Gilbert does not have a crush on me!”, she almost shrieked and then took a deep breath in order to appear more lady like, if Diana’s mother decided to come check on them due to her outburst. “We’re friends, and that is all we will, can, ever be.”

Diana looks confused at her, “why is that all you can be?”

She makes a few hand gestures into the air, like that will either make the question go away or make Diana understand. “You know. I’m not, he’s not-”

She took a deep breath, took a seat at the chair by the mirror, maintaining eye contact with her friend, who only had lifted an eyebrow in response.

“I know who I am, Diana,” she starts, biting her lip, exhaling deeply, nodding, continuing, “and I love who I am. I love you, Marilla, Matthew. Jerry, Ruby, all our friends. It’s so much more, so wonderful, all of this, it’s more than I ever thought I’d get.”

She’s always felt a little fearless, but explaining this, peeling all of her away, for Diana to see her very core, it’s scary nothing has ever been before. “I have so many opportunities, so many friends, so many I love who love me. 

“And I’m so grateful for everything my future has in store for me. I’m going to be a teacher, like Miss Stacy, I can feel it. I am brilliant, I know this.”

 

Diana just smiles at her, nodding enthusiastically as Anne compliments herself, and against her will, she laughs.

“But, Diana, I’m not a catch, in no way.” Diana’s smile fades, and Anne looks away from her friend’s disappointment, “you don’t have to agree, but I’m not. I’m not beautiful, not like you. I don’t know anything about being a wife. I know I am going to achieve my dreams, but, Diana, no one is ever going to want to make a bride and wife of me. My hideous red hair, my freckles, my lack of realism, my tendency to imagine-”

“Anne Shirley-Cuthbert,” Diana interrupts her with her voice laced in anger, “are you saying that you are not worthy of Gilbert Blythe because you’re an orphan?”

She shrugs and looks up at Diana in defeat and is about to say something, she doesn’t even really know what, before Diana lifts her hand in order to silence her friend.

“Because if you are, I’m going to be very cross with you, my bosom friend,” Diana once again lifts her eyebrows, almost challenging Anne to say something. She doesn’t.

Diana makes her way to Anne, slowly, before she sinks down on her knees in front of her, her hands taking Anne’s in hers. “I promised I’d never tell you this, but that was before I thought you capable of being so stupid. I really should’ve listened to Cole, in some ways he is so much more clever than both of us.”

Anne smiles a little at the mention of their dear friend.

“Now, Anne,” Diana continues, with a little smile on her lips. “You told Cole that he should love who he loves. That sentiment can’t only be true for Cole, for me, that is true for you. You are the most radiant girl I’ve ever met in my life, Anne. You spread joy, smiles and laughter wherever you go, you and that imagination of yours. You’ve helped Ruby so much, given her something else to do than just wonder about how it is to be Ruby Blythe. You’ve given her a future outside of Gilbert. You’ve given me imagination and adventures, and you’ve given me the best friend I will ever have. You’ve given Cole peace, friendship, acceptance when I couldn’t fully, and you helped him so much.

“Anne, you are like the sun. Everything light up wherever you go. Don’t you ever think that you are not worthy of anyone’s love, not your own, not mine, not Marilla and Matthew’s, and certainly not Gilbert’s. You are a sunflower, towering above us all stuck on the ground. Whoever you marry, not whoever marries you, but whoever _you_ choose to call your lifemate, your equal and companion in life, is the luckiest person in the world. I will not have you think otherwise.”

Anne just stares at Diana before with a shaking voice saying, “Diana, that was beautiful, thank you.”

Diana kisses their joint hands and smiles. “You’re welcome, Anne. Don’t you ever dare be so stupid again.”

A comfortable moment of silence reigns for a moment, before Diana picks up the slacks once more. “Now, Anne. Cole once told you Gilbert has a crush on you-”

“Diana, he doesn’t-”

Diana goes on like Anne had never spoken, “and I’m here to tell you that Gilbert has had a crush on your since that first day when you whacked him over the head with a slate. And him treating you so tenderly while you were sick is not anything new, and if you just think back, you’ll know it’s the truth. Gilbert has always treated you like the most beautiful flower he’s ever seen, not vulnerable and in need of protection, but precious and enchanting.”

She opens her mouth to contradict Diana’s words, out of nothing else but habit, but nothing comes out.

Instead her mind is flooded by memories of Gilbert and her, from the very beginning. How he saved her from Billy, _any dragons around here need slaying?_ , how he opened the door, how he tried to take the blame when Mr. Philips punished her for hitting him. _Fair and square_. _I need to sit down_ , a hand on her elbow, guiding her, ready to catch her if she fell. _Anything I can do to help?_. _It’s really good to see you_ , a soft smile, as tender as always, no matter that she looked like a boy with that awfully short hair. _Merry Christmas, Anne_ , the step toward her as they once again looked into each other’s eyes, his eyes looking from her eyes to her lips and back again.

_Tragical romance and all?_  
_Remains to be seen_

“Oh,” she whispers, and then she looks to Diana again, “ _oh_.” 

Diana laughs, “yes, exactly, Anne. Oh.” 

“But what should I say to him?”, she asks, biting her lip. “I never thought I’d be in this situation.” 

Diana smiles at her, grasps her hands more firmly. “Anne, you don’t have to do anything. You can ignore it. You can tell him you don’t feel the same. Or you can tell him that you have no idea what you’re doing but that if he’s willing, then you’re willing to be brave enough to take that step with him.” 

“But what if I’m not? What if I’m not brave, but a coward?" 

Diana looks sternly at her, “then you’d be a liar as well, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert. In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve made mistakes, you’ve said the wrong things, you’ve been rash. But never ever, have you been a coward.” 

She nods, biting her lip a little harder before finally meeting her friend’s eye. “If you were me, if Gilbert was Je-, if Gilbert was the boy you loved, what would you do?” 

Diana smiles, “I’d do just like the heroines in our stories. I’d run straight into his arms and stay there forever.” 

Anne laughs before quickly giving her a hug, holding her friend close, feeling like crying with how happy, relieved and loved she feels. 

“I love you, Diana,” she whispers in the other’s ear, “I shall never forgive how kind you always are. Thank you so much for being my the most wonderful friend a girl could ask for.” 

“I love you, Anne,” Diana whispers back, hugging her back just a fiercely, “and I shall never forget how much you’ve opened my eyes to the things my parents don’t deem good enough.” 

As she lets go and moves back, she stays in Diana’s arm for a little while, just smiles at her, feeling so happy in this moment, she never wants to time to move on. 

Finally, Diana tugs at her arms, “now, go, Anne. Go.” 

And with one finale smile, a kiss to Diana’s cheek, she does. 

When she gets to the Blythe farm, she knocks on the door, and not for the first time today, it feels like deja vu, when it appears that no one’s home, and she paces back and forth getting herself worked more and more worked up, nervously looking at the door. 

“Come on, Gilbert, please,” she whispers, as she once more knocks on the door, “please.” 

And then the door opens, and she turns around, ready to burst into a longwinded speech, but instead of Gilbert, it’s Mary who looks like she belongs under a thousand blankets and with a hundred cups of tea with honey. 

“Mary,” she gasps, bolts forward to help steady the other woman, “are you alright?” 

And then, just like that day, she can hear a person approaching from behind, and she knows it’s him, can almost feel it in the air, can see it in the way Mary’s smile widens. 

"Mary, you shouldn’t be up, you have a cold,” Gilbert admonishes her as he nears them, and Mary just laughs, waving off his comments. 

"You shouldn’t worry so much, Gilbert,” she says with a smile, “you’ll give yourself wrinkles.” Then she looks over Gilbert’s shoulder. “And there’s my husband, he’ll help me, so you two can let go of me now and talk.” 

Anne turns around and immediately catches Bash’s gaze. He’s wearing a smirk, very self-satisfied, and he tips his hat. “Miss Anne with an E. A lovely surprise.” He looks meaningfully over at Gilbert, and she can’t help but smile a little wider, a little more hopeful. 

Bash pushes past them, straight to his wife, who he lifts up into his arms, just like he did on their wedding day, and her laugh is lovely and in love, that it makes Anne so happy. She can’t help but stare at their retreating forms, so obviously in love, so obviously happy. It’s not even jealousy she feels, but rather want and hope that someday that will be her and whoever will love her. 

"Anne?”, she hears, awkwardly, unsure, from her side, and she turns to look at Gilbert. 

She’s seen him vulnerable before, hurt, in sorrow, but she realizes she’s never actually seen him in doubt of _him self_. He’s always been centered, sure of who he is, what he wants. The Gilbert looking at her isn’t quite so sure anymore, or maybe that’s just her self-projection talking. 

“Gilbert,” she says, and it feels like that’s enough. But it isn’t. Not anymore. Not when she has so many words, so many declarations and so many questions. 

“Are you okay?”, he asks, and she nods immediately, looking anywhere but him. 

Her eyes wander to the horizon, the sinking sun, the warm colours of yellow, orange, red and pink that it paints the horizon in. 

“I’ve always thought I was brave, you know,” she starts out, “to have survived the asylum and all those homes, and broken bones and dreams, but turns out. You can be brave in the face of some things, and a coward when it comes to other matters.” 

She takes a deep breath, thankful that he isn’t saying anything, just standing by her side, letting her talk herself warm. He knows her so well. She’s so thankful for him. 

One deep breath, one more exhale, and then she’ll say it all. 

“I thought for so long that in order for me to follow my dreams, I’d never be able to marry or love. And for so long I thought I’d never find anyone to love, or rather, someone who’d love me. It was never something I’d known before. But then Matthew and Marilla loved me, and Diana loved me. And it was more than ever thought was due me, and I was so happy.” 

And she does. And it comes out all at once, and as she speaks she can’t help but look at Gilbert. His eyes are impossibly soft, and she bites her lip for a second, trying to fin her courage to finish. 

"I told you once I’d make a terrible wife, and I would, I’d get lost in my head, in the papers I’d grade as a teacher, I’d imagine an entire world and forget whatever dinner was cooking in the oven and the stove.” She pauses once more to breathe, get enough to finish. To say the most important thing. Gilbert, still silent as the stone, lifts his hand to her hair, caresses it gently. 

“I wouldn’t make a good housewife, but I think I’d make a good lifemate, someone you could depend on, who’ll support your dreams,” Gilbert takes her hand, and she lets herself melt against him. Slowly, he tilts his head down to hers, rests their foreheads against each other. Without even thinking, she lets her hand rest on his cheek, caressing the small stubble beginning to grow against the smooth skin. “Who’ll love you." 

Gilbert’s lips are just as soft, gentle, and demanding as his person, and she’s not sure how she was ever unsure of his love. It feels like this is where she’s exactly supposed to be. His hands cradle her head, pressing her slightly against him, his fingers entwined with hair she’s always hated so much. 

As they break apart, just enough for their lips not touch, she can feel his smile that she can’t help but return. 

And then she's talking again, "not to say that you have to marry me, I just wanted you to know I'm in love with you, and I feel safe with you, and I-"

She looks to Gilbert's eyes and they're soft and full of wonder, and then she realizes, that he's not thinking of marriage and children or even the future as a concept. He's thinking of her and this moment that is about them, and only them and their love.

“Oh, Anne-girl,” he whispers, his hand coming to her cheek, as gentle as the fever dreams that maybe, just maybe, were reality. “You have no idea how happy I am.” 

Just before she kisses him again, because he’s not afraid of loving her, so she’ll not be afraid either. They’ll walk side by side, not one in front of another, but like partners and equals, give each other strength. 

Just before she kisses him again, she whispers against his lips, “I can make a guess,” and he laughs and crashes his lips against hers, and it’s the most perfect sound and moment in all of her life. 

In due time, Bash and Mary will open the door, catch them in the act, laugh a little, and Mary will take her in her arms and congratulate, and Bash will be ever so confident that Gilbert almost wants to punch him; in due time, Gilbert’ll walk Anne home, their hands entwined, and Marilla will see them come up the road, smiling to herself, so proud and happy that Anne was brave enough to take the love so willingly given. 

In due time, Anne will have to tell Ruby that she’s in love with Gilbert, and maybe he’s in love with her, and she and Diana will hug Ruby through the heartbreak of her childhood, knowing that Ruby will get over it, and that someone will love her so much she’ll never think of Gilbert Blythe ever again. 

In due time, life will go on. But right now, right now, Gilbert and Anne are together on a parch, the sunset in the background, happy and in love. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> It's my first story about these two, because I watched the entire series in the last weeks, and i can't wait for season three and for more scenes of them both being idiots in love and in denial too:')
> 
> Also, come hang with me at henrycaevill on tumblr, send me a prompt or rant to me about in love gilbert and anne are idk


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